Gleitsman Kristin R, Sengupta Raghuvir N, Herschlag Daniel
Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Department of Chemical Engineering and Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
RNA. 2017 Dec;23(12):1745-1753. doi: 10.1261/rna.062026.117. Epub 2017 Sep 28.
Molecular recognition is central to biological processes, function, and specificity. Proteins associate with ligands with a wide range of association rate constants, with maximal values matching the theoretical limit set by the rate of diffusional collision. As less is known about RNA association, we compiled association rate constants for all RNA/ligand complexes that we could find in the literature. Like proteins, RNAs exhibit a wide range of association rate constants. However, the fastest RNA association rates are considerably slower than those of the fastest protein associations and fall well below the diffusional limit. The apparently general observation of slow association with RNAs has implications for evolution and for modern-day biology. Our compilation highlights a quantitative molecular property that can contribute to biological understanding and underscores our need to develop a deeper physical understanding of molecular recognition events.
分子识别是生物过程、功能和特异性的核心。蛋白质与配体结合的缔合速率常数范围广泛，其最大值与扩散碰撞速率设定的理论极限相匹配。由于对RNA结合的了解较少，我们汇总了文献中所能找到的所有RNA/配体复合物的缔合速率常数。与蛋白质一样，RNA也表现出广泛的缔合速率常数。然而，RNA最快的缔合速率比最快的蛋白质结合速率要慢得多，且远低于扩散极限。与RNA结合缓慢这一明显普遍的观察结果对进化和现代生物学都有影响。我们的汇总突出了一种有助于生物学理解的定量分子特性，并强调我们需要对分子识别事件形成更深入的物理理解。
